It's official. I'm in training. The goals for 2014 are:
Plus:
Following my triumphant finish (read: desperate scramble to the end) at Ironman Lake Tahoe last September, I took a hiatus. Actually, it was a HIATUS.
It was glorious and wonderful. After work, I went home and watched TV. Sometimes, on weekends, I went for a hike with a friend. Other times, I went for a bike ride to a bakery to consume more calories than burned. I signed up for a 10K turkey trot, but did the 5K instead (but still ate 10K worth of turkey). I heaved myself through a half marathon and hobbled to brunch after. I spent 3 weeks meandering around Chile eating chocolate and enormous sandwiches every day. Like I said, glorious.
- Ironman Boulder, August 3
- Portland Marathon, October 5
Plus:
- Boulder 70.3, June 15 (a tune-up race and course preview)
Following my triumphant finish (read: desperate scramble to the end) at Ironman Lake Tahoe last September, I took a hiatus. Actually, it was a HIATUS.
It was glorious and wonderful. After work, I went home and watched TV. Sometimes, on weekends, I went for a hike with a friend. Other times, I went for a bike ride to a bakery to consume more calories than burned. I signed up for a 10K turkey trot, but did the 5K instead (but still ate 10K worth of turkey). I heaved myself through a half marathon and hobbled to brunch after. I spent 3 weeks meandering around Chile eating chocolate and enormous sandwiches every day. Like I said, glorious.
But now, the chickens come home to roost. Training began on January 1, and my body is freaking the heck out. Seriously.
I decided to join a new training program this year, PacWest Athletics. The group has athletes of all varieties, training for a plethora of events, from running to cycling to triathlon. It also has a race team. A unifying characteristic of the participants is that they are all quite strong.
And I'm at the back of the pack.
I've never been super fast. I like to train for hours on end, but when race day comes, my times show up in the second half of the leaderboard. I'm okay with that, though improvement is always my goal.
For the last few years, I've been training with Team in Training. It's a group geared toward newer athletes, generally, though people tend to stick with it and get stronger (like me) and experienced athletes join for the cause and camaraderie. But it tends to be a biased sample, and my middle-ranked times often came out sounding fast.
I decided to join a new training program this year, PacWest Athletics. The group has athletes of all varieties, training for a plethora of events, from running to cycling to triathlon. It also has a race team. A unifying characteristic of the participants is that they are all quite strong.
And I'm at the back of the pack.
I've never been super fast. I like to train for hours on end, but when race day comes, my times show up in the second half of the leaderboard. I'm okay with that, though improvement is always my goal.
For the last few years, I've been training with Team in Training. It's a group geared toward newer athletes, generally, though people tend to stick with it and get stronger (like me) and experienced athletes join for the cause and camaraderie. But it tends to be a biased sample, and my middle-ranked times often came out sounding fast.
This new group is a different crowd. Many are experienced, natural athletes and they train hard.
There's a master's swim every Sunday. The first time I went, I seeded myself in the middle of the pool, since I tend to swim in the "medium" lanes at public pools. After the warm-up, I told the coach I needed to move down to the "beginner" lanes. I just wasn't going to be able to keep up.
After a few blushing moments of embarrassment, I acknowledged that this is where I need to be if I want to improve: chasing people who are faster than me until I get faster too. So I'm pushing myself harder than I did last year, stretching my day to include more hours of training, even in these early days of base building.
Here's a standard week (for now):
I'm averaging 11-12 hours each week, and I'm at the early stages of training. Aside from being tired, my body is slowly getting used to the grind of getting up in the dark, dark hours of the morning and getting home just before bedtime. Luckily, the agony of that first boot camp session has faded (I seriously couldn't walk normally for 5 days) and I can already see improvement.
I'm eating a lot of frozen meals, but I'm still making time for visits to beautiful Mayumi, baby extraordinaire, and to see my book club. Oh, and also my brand new job.
And so it begins!
There's a master's swim every Sunday. The first time I went, I seeded myself in the middle of the pool, since I tend to swim in the "medium" lanes at public pools. After the warm-up, I told the coach I needed to move down to the "beginner" lanes. I just wasn't going to be able to keep up.
After a few blushing moments of embarrassment, I acknowledged that this is where I need to be if I want to improve: chasing people who are faster than me until I get faster too. So I'm pushing myself harder than I did last year, stretching my day to include more hours of training, even in these early days of base building.
Here's a standard week (for now):
- Tuesday: Boot camp 6:00 - 7:15 am and Track workout 6:30 - 8:00 pm
- Wednesday: Swim 50-60 minutes and Spin 60 minutes
- Thursday: Boot camp 6:00 - 7:15 am and 30-40 minute run (before or pm)
- Friday: 60 minutes of swim, spin or cardio
- Saturday: 4-hour bike ride, hilly
- Sunday: Master swim 8:30 - 10:00 am and 50 minute run
I'm averaging 11-12 hours each week, and I'm at the early stages of training. Aside from being tired, my body is slowly getting used to the grind of getting up in the dark, dark hours of the morning and getting home just before bedtime. Luckily, the agony of that first boot camp session has faded (I seriously couldn't walk normally for 5 days) and I can already see improvement.
I'm eating a lot of frozen meals, but I'm still making time for visits to beautiful Mayumi, baby extraordinaire, and to see my book club. Oh, and also my brand new job.
And so it begins!